NSF Award
1142855
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project leverages the game changing<br/>Transformative Integrated Power Solution (TIPS?) power conversion technology, to<br/>bring a radical breakthrough to the traditional tradeoff between efficiency and circuit<br/>size, pushing this figure of merit to a new frontier. By storing the required energy<br/>primarily electrically (capacitive energy storage) rather than magnetically (inductive<br/>energy storage), harnessing a 1000x improvement in energy density, and using the<br/>adiabatic (lossless) mechanism to charge and discharge the capacitors, the novel<br/>TIPS? power conversion architecture is able to deliver miniaturized products of 30X<br/>smaller than the traditional approach, or cut the power losses due to conversion by 50-<br/>75%, at cost parity. The project proposes a radically novel systems architecture for the<br/>data center market, and investigates the lower voltage end of the system, namely the<br/>12:1 step down ratio necessary for servers. To de-risk the commercialization path, this<br/>project researches, designs and fabricates prototypes based on the TIPS? technology,<br/>by pushing the limit along three distinct dimensions: conversion efficiency, size, and<br/>cost. This project will generate a feasible 3D space of viable specifications to accelerate<br/>bringing this game changing technology to market.<br/><br/>The broader impact/commercial potential of this project, enables commercial<br/>power conversion products, at no cost to the consumer, data center, or server<br/>manufacturer, that can save $1 billion a year in electricity cost, amounting to annual<br/>savings of 7 million tons of CO2 emissions worldwide. Data centers emit more heat and<br/>green house gasses than the entire airline industry worldwide. By 2020, data centers?<br/>energy consumption will exceed 200 billion kWhr per year. While server equipment<br/>spending has been declining, electricity spending has increased 10 fold over the last<br/>fifteen years, approaching $50 billion annually. More than 50% of this cost is due to<br/>power conversion losses and the resultant cooling needs. The TIPS? power converter<br/>technology can cut these power losses by 50%. Additionally, by enhancing the scope<br/>and technological understanding of this novel technology, and by making power<br/>conversion more efficient, significant value flows to numerous other markets, such as<br/>increased battery life in Mobile Devices ($3 billion), more power generated by Solar<br/>Cells (<$1 billion), extended driving range of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles ($0.2 billion),<br/>no standby losses in consumer electronics ($6 billion), and reduced component count<br/>and higher reliability in the Industrial and Measurement sector ($4 billion).
